Seven Devils
by Mrs.Monster
Summary: When a soulless Sam fixates on Molly while she's on vacation in Atlantic City, it's time for Dean to step in for her protection.
1. Holy Water Cannot Help You

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_(Disclaimer: I own nothing related to Sherlock or Supernatural. No copyright infringement intended._

_Author's Note: This came about as a result of how I pretty much ship Molly Hooper with everyone, and I have a never ending love for Supernatural and Dean. So I thought, hey, I'll put them together. This takes place as an AU season 6 for Supernatural and pose season 2 for Sherlock (way post, Sherlock has already returned from his fake death, though he and John won't play a huge role in the story). I'm writing this as I go, so I'm not sure when the second part will be up, but I'll try not to make it too long. I estimate that it will be about five parts in all, each part around the same length._

_Thanks to hihiyas and eye2skeye for the beta work!_

**...**

_Holy Water cannot help you now_**  
**_A thousand armies couldn't keep me out_**  
**_I don't want your money_**  
**_I don't want your crown_**  
**_See I've come to burn_**  
**_Your Kingdom down_

_PART ONE_

****The girl was an unforeseen complication. Why Sam chose to fixate on her, Dean didn't know. As far as he could see, she wasn't anything special. Alright, so she was a doctor of some kind, big deal. The way Sam looked at her, Dean doubted that it was her brain he was after. Or maybe it was; Dean couldn't be one hundred percent sure. His soulless little brother could be imagining all different types of nasty business.****

Didn't matter one way or another. Dean wasn't going to let him have her; he wasn't going let his brother go _that _far off the reservation. The fact that he may already have done things that would make Dean's thick skin crawl was beside the point. Dean _didn't know _about those things; this girl was right in front of his face, and if he could stop his brother from possibly bathing in her probably virginal blood he was going to do everything he could.****

The fact that he didn't really know what Sam wanted with her was what was bugging Dean most about the situation. He didn't know exactly how far gone Sam was, and since they'd learned that Sam had come back from the cage without his soul, Dean was playing things safe. If he thought that Sam just wanted to fuck her, he was all for that. Dean had no room to judge. But that little gleam that had been in his brother's eye when she'd been sprawled on the thick, cream carpet after literally running head long into him, had unnerved Dean.****

Sam had looked at the girl like she was lunch.****

Again, that could be nothing more than lust, but there was just _something _that hadn't settled right with Dean. So he wasn't taking any chances. Though how it had all played out like _this _he wasn't sure. His plan had been to send the girl far away and keep Sammy close to him, as always under his watchful eye. She was British, so he suggested that she go back to… wherever she was from, and he would distract Sam from the fact that she had a lovely, pale, slender, fragile neck. That Sam had talked about in detail. For several minutes.****

_'It's so breakable, Dean,' _he'd said in a reverent tone that had made Dean's stomach turn.****

Dean's eyes darted to the passenger's seat of his Impala and over the slim form of the girl staring out the window. No, this hadn't been the plan at all.****

"Where are we going?" Molly Hooper asked, tearing her eyes away from the landscape outside her window.****

"We'll find a motel, hole up and rest for a few days. Figure out what's going to happen next."****

"A motel? I had another three days at that hotel in Atlantic City."****

"Can't stay in one place for too long, sweetheart. Makes us too easy to find."****

Molly blew out a sigh, pushed her hair from her face. "That really sucks. How long have you been doing this?"****

Dean's hand tightened on the wheel. "Forever."

...

****The room was the same, as they'd always been since he'd been a kid. Ugly wallpaper, stained carpet, two double beds, a table and two chairs, and a small crappy TV. The beds were uncomfortable, but the sheets were clean, the shower had hot water and there were clean towels; when it came down to it, that's all that really mattered.****

Dean watched Molly from the corner of his eye, and he was relieved when she didn't blink an eye at the less-than-stellar room. She just claimed the bed closest to the bathroom and called dibs on the first shower. In fact, Molly was handling all of this a little _too _well. Dean wanted to ask what her malfunction was, but he decided that it could wait until after a hot shower and some grub.****

Molly disappeared into the bathroom with a clean change of clothes from her suitcase and Dean thumbed through a stack of take-out menus that he found next to the phone. With the flyer for a pizza place clutched in his hand, Dean tried to knock on the bathroom door quietly but wound up pounding on the cheap wood with his fist. So sue him, he wasn't used to traveling with girls.****

"W-what?" Molly said, sounding a little startled, on the other side.****

"I'm ordering pizza. You're not allergic to cheese or anything like that, are you?"****

"Uh, no. I'm okay with whatever."****

"Okay. Good. I'll just call this in."****

"You do that."****

The water started flowing and Dean backed away from the door, digging his phone from his pocket. Half an hour later Molly finally emerged from the bathroom, hair hanging long and wet down her back, wearing an oversized t-shirt and purple cotton shorts. There was a knock on the door, and she jumped, sending Dean a panicked look.****

"It's just the pizza guy," Dean assured her, moving to answer the door.****

Dean traded the guy cash for the two white and red boxes. He and Molly sat at the rickety table, she handed out napkins and they descended on the food.****

"Oh my God," Molly groaned around a mouthful of cheese and toppings. "I was so hungry. I didn't realize how hungry I was. This is brilliant."****

"Hunting witches really works up an appetite," Dean said, his mouth also stuffed full.****

Molly nodded in agreement, swallowed, and scarfed another bite.****

She'd been surprisingly helpful while he'd been hunting a coven at that hotel in Atlantic City. The witches were a particularly nasty kind, the blood of infants and virgins and all that. Molly had figured out which rooms they were sharing by hacking into the hotel's computer and making a phone call to someone back in... wherever she was from. It hadn't been so much Molly that had figured out where the witches were, but whoever was on the other end of that phone call. Someone she kept referring to as 'Sherlock'. Seriously, who named their kid _Sherlock_?****

...****

The next morning, Dean rolled out of bed around nine only to find Molly still snoring with the covers pulled over her head. Artificial cold air made him shiver and he pulled the thick blanket from the bed and wrapped it around himself, moving to the small table where there was still half a pizza stuck to the cardboard bottom of the box. Dean inhaled a few slices and flicked the thick curtain open with a finger, only to see Sam sitting cross-legged on the hood of the Impala.****

His little brother was focused on the room with a scary intensity, and Dean still didn't know what to make of this entire fucked-up situation. Cracking the door open, Dean stuck his head out and glared at Sam.****

"Off the car!" Dean slammed the door shut and locked it as Sam slid off the Impala only to kick the fender, get into his own stolen POS and drive away.****

Shaking his head, Dean retreated to the bathroom to change into clean clothes and brush his teeth. Hunting monsters and keeping women from his soulless little brother was no excuse for poor dental hygiene. Leaving the bathroom, he slammed the door but there was no movement from Molly's bed.****

Dean dropped his duffle heavily onto the foot of her bed, but still nothing. They needed to get on the road, Bobby had called the night before after she'd gone to sleep with a job in Indiana. Molly needed to get her ass up and in gear, but it was looking like she was a pretty sound sleeper.****

Standing there with his hands in his pockets, Dean watched Molly snore, hair lying across her face fluttering with each breath. He kicked the side of her mattress, and she just rolled over, mashing her face into her pillow.****

He blew out a heavy breath, snatched a pillow from his own bed and threw it at her head.****

So Dean had never been one for subtlety, so what?****

Molly squeaked and flailed out of bed, landing on the floor in the heap.****

"Some hunters reflexes you've got," Dean grumbled, plopping on the edge of his bed as Molly pulled herself up on her own.****

"I'm not a hunter, I'm a doctor, damn it." Molly scrubbed a hand down her face, pushed her hair back. "What do you want?"****

"We need to hit the road. Got a call about a job in Indiana, so get dressed."****

"...Indiana? Job? What are you talking about?"****

Dean bit back a suffering-sigh. "Rumors of animal attacks. Three of 'em. Bodies mauled, hearts clawed out. Bobby thinks it's a werewolf."****

Molly was already up and digging through her suitcase, but she stopped at the word 'werewolf'. "Right, those are real," she muttered to herself. "Who's Bobby?"****

"A friend, now hurry up." Dean was feeling short tempered, and the familiar weight around his neck and across his shoulders felt heavier with every passing minute. He was quickly approaching his limit, and enough was beginning to be too much.****

Molly disappeared into the bathroom and reemerged only a few minutes later, dressed and pulling her hair back.****

"Ready," she announced, and they gathered their stuff and troopedout to the Impala. Dean looked around, but there was no sign of Sam anywhere, and he breathed a sigh of relief. Until he figured out how to fix Sam, he didn't want him anywhere near Molly.****

In a single night, the girl had managed to worm her way under his skin. Didn't mean that he necessarily liked her, but he wasn't as agitated with her tagging along. She was smart and she seemed to be able to keep her head under pressure, like when they'd taken out the coven back at her swanky hotel. Molly hadn't taken any of them out personally, but at least she hadn't screamed the house down or fainted. Which, really, major points to Molly, because that fainting damsel thing annoyed the crap out of him. That was more Sam's gig.****

They stopped at a diner for breakfast and then they were on the highway, headed toward Bloomington, Indiana and possibly a werewolf.

****Simply put, Molly had been fantastic hunting down werewolves. She barely threw up when the guy had shifted, his teeth elongating to yellowed dripping points, hands turning into paws and claws. And she hadn't even blinked when Dean had stabbed the thing.****

"What the hell is wrong with you?" Dean asked her later when they were sitting across from each other over burgers and fries at yet another motel. "This shit isn't even phasing you."****

"What, the food? The slop they used to serve in the canteen at Bart's was much worse than this. The chips are actually pretty decent." She snatched another fry out of her styrofoam container, swiped a line in her ketchup and popped it into her mouth.****

"Not the food, damn it!" Dean dropped his burger back into his container. "This whole... thing! You just watched me gank a werewolf. A. Werewolf. And yet there you sit, mowing on that cheeseburger, like you don't have a care in the goddamn world!"****

Molly washed down her bite with a sip of Sprite. "I don't see the point of hysterics, Dean."****

"You're not questioning any of it? Even to yourself?"****

"Of course I am, who wouldn't?" She ate another fry. "I'm just trying to make the bestout of a situation that I, frankly, do not understand at all. What on earth is wrong with your brother? Why did I tag along with you instead of going back to London where I have friends that will protect me? Why did I agree to that stupid Sin to Win weekend in the first place?" Molly shrugged. "There's no point in driving myself crazy over it. I'm just gonna roll widdit, baby."****

"That was a terrible fake accent." Dean said after a few moments.****

"Shut up."****

Dean and Molly finished their burgers and fries in companionable silence and Molly retreated to the shower while Dean claimed the TV remote. He was watching an episode of Three's Company when she came out followed by a cloud of steam. Molly immediately crawled into her bed, and was out like a light in no time.****

KIcking off his boots, they fell with twin thumps to the floor. Dean stripped to his boxers, tossed his dirty clothes in a pile by his bed and slid between the sheets. It took him much longer to fall asleep.

...

****Sam followed them into a laundromat a week after the job with the werewolf. He didn't say anything as he threw his jeans in with Dean and Molly's and fed a few dollars into the machine. Molly settled in a hard plastic chair with a paperback book that Dean had picked up for her at a convenience store a few days back, and Sam sat next to her.****

Dean watched the way Sam's hands curled into fists against his thighs and he subtly leaned over toward the girl and inhaled. Molly shifted uncomfortably and flinched when Sam reached over and pinched a lock of her hair between two fingers. He curled the light brown strands around his first finger and Molly's hands clenched,white knuckle tight against the spine of her book. ****

When Sam tugged at her hair and smirked, Molly shot out of the chair and didn't look back as she left the laundromat and went to sit in the Impala. ****

Dean frowned at his brother. "Dude, cut it the hell out." ****

"I think I would completely lose my shit if she cut that hair off. It would be loose around her shoulders when I slice into her, and the blood would stain-"****

Dean kicked his little brother in the leg, and had to stop himself from flinching back when the look on Sam's face turned from rapturous to dark in a split second. ****

Clearing his throat, he forced himself to say, "Seriously. Knock that shit off." He sat in a chair across from his brother-always within sight of the Impala and pulled a magazine off the stack that whoever in the hell ran the laundromat left out. ****

By the time the first load finished it's cycle Dean had learned just exactly how to please a man in bed and his brother possessed the most unnerving hundred-yard stare he'd encountered since he'd shared a pizza with Death.

...

****So his plan hadn't gone exactly according to plan. Dean asked himself when exactly did his plans ever really work out, and couldn't come up with an answer that pleased him so he pushed the tiny little voice away and instead focused on masking the pain. The demon that he and Molly had been up against had landed a few very (_very_**) **lucky blows, and Dean was more than a little bruised. A deep slash ran across his abdomen, and he could feel the blood leaking through the soft fabric of his shirt. Dean hid it as much as he could with his jacket, not wanting Molly to see. No reason to make her freak out and as soon as he could Dean would lock himself away in the bathroom and fix it up himself.****

His vision spun as he parked the Impala outside their motel room, and Dean held his leather jacket closed against his chest. Staggering behind Molly as she unlocked the door Dean barely made it a foot inside before it was more than just his vision spinning and he dropped to a knee, grabbing Molly's bed for leverage.****

"Dean?" the girl asked, rushing to his side. "What's the matter?"****

He tried to chuckle. "Guess that demon got more outta me that I thought."****

Dean could have sworn that he _heard _Molly rolling her eyes. "Well, if you hadn't been so preoccupied with not letting me fight _at all_, maybe you wouldn't-" she started pushing his jacket off, ignoring his protests and stuttered to a stop when she saw the almost black of the blood soaking his front. "Oh! You absolute moron! Why didn't you say anything?"****

Wincing as she stripped his jacket the rest of the way off, Dean shot her a narrow look. "What can you do about it?"****

Molly didn't pause as she rummaged through one of her suitcases. "How much blood have you lost, exactly? I'm a bloody _doctor_, Dean. Now scoot up on the bed, lay back." Dean followed her instructions slowly, pushing himself up onto her bed. Molly helped him lie flat, flipping open the white and red first aid kit she'd pulled out of her bag.****

Neither of them really thought about it when Molly straddled his thighs; she pulled a small pair of silver scissors out of her kit and slowly, carefully cut what was left of his shirt away. Peeling it away from his chest, Molly grabbed a small bottle from her supplies and finally looked up at him.****

"I'm sorry, this is going to be unpleasant." Curling her bottom lip between her teeth, Molly set about cleaning the wound that slashed crimson and white over his lower abdomen. She had to pop the button on his jeans to access the marred flesh, but she worked with detached efficiency.****

By the time she was stitching him up, Dean had tuned out the pain (this was nothing compared to Hell), and was watching her work, head bent over his body, tugging the black thread through his flesh and skin.****

"There," she said, slipping off her red stained gloves. "A wash and some gauze, and you're all fixed up." Molly discarded the soiled supplies and packed away the rest, still sitting on top of him. "And next time, say something! You could have bled out on the drive here, you clod."****

"Thanks, Hooper," Dean grumbled as she slid off him and disappeared into the bathroom, returning moments later with the brown ice bucket filled with water and a snowy white bath towel. A few pieces of hair fell out of her ponytail and down around her face as Molly washed the blood from Dean's chest; it was soft as it brushed against his skin and Dean couldn't remember the last time anything felt so... _comforting._****

_Crap_, he groaned inwardly. _Enough with the paperback romance novel bullshit._****

Molly patted an unharmed spot on his chest after she taped gauze over the perfectly done stitches. She turned down the covers on the other bed, and then turned back to Dean.****

"What in the hell are you doing?" he asked as she started to tug his boots off.****

"Helping you undress. You need rest."****

Dean batted her hands away when she reached up to help him out of his jeans. "Can undress myself, thanks. I've had much worse than this."

He worked his way out of the bloody and ripped clothing as Molly disappeared into the bathroom to change. Dean gritted his teeth and pushed off of the bed and made the few steps to the second one before collapsing onto the mattress. Breathing through the pain that ripped through him after jostling his stitches, Dean sunk into the bed and pulled the crisp sheet up over his chest. He pressed his head back against his pillow and willed his muscles to relax.

The bathroom door opened and shut and Dean cracked an eye open when he heard Molly unzipping his duffle bag.

"Hey!" Dean protested, pushing himself up on an elbow. "Outta the bag!"

Her head was bent over the bag, but he could imagine her rolling her eyes. She just pulled out the fifth of rotgut whiskey that he'd gotten from Bobby and handed it and the TV remote to him. Dean relaxed a fraction after she was out of his duffle, but tensed up again after she crawled into the bed next to him. He eyed her, thought about protesting again, but after a glance at the other bed, the sheets stained with his blood, he knew that he couldn't make her sleep there. Dean could handle this, he could; it was just sharing a bed, right? Granted he hadn't shared a bed with anyone since Sammy was little and afraid of the monsters in the closet, but he was completely fine with this.

As long as she didn't try to cuddle. Dean wasn't sure that cuddling was on his list of things he could handle.

...

The next morning Dean was shocked awake by Molly screaming so loudly that later he checked his ears for blood. He sat up quickly, instantly regretting it as pain tore through him, and he scowled up at his little brother, who was standing next to the bed, staring down at Molly. Dean had stolen all the blankets during the night and Molly's sleep shirt had ridden up around her waist; he flicked the blanket over her, covering the sight of her gray panties and Dean saw Sam nearly _wilt._****

"Will you fucking _stop it_?" Dean tried to get comfortable, to ease the searing pain and Sammy backed away from the bed a little. "I'm seriously expecting you to show up with a little mustache one of these days just so you can twirl it while you leer at the poor girl."****

Molly had buried herself underneath her pillow and blanket; Sam seemed to be the only thing in her new situation that seriously scared her.****

"Do me a favor, Sammy, and go get some breakfast so Molly can get out of bed." Dean himself was already settling back into his comfortable covers. "And don't try to fucking roofie her food again, because _I will know_," he yelled at Sam's retreating back as he left the hotel room. Whether he'd be back with food or not was a total toss up; whether the syrup for Molly's pancakes would be drugged again was another toss up. Dean elbowed her in the side.****

"He's gone. You can get up now."****

The girl wiggled her way out of the bed and gathered a change of clothes and her small shower bag. She locked herself in the bathroom and starting up the shower. Dean noticed that she took the prepaid phone she'd picked up along the way in with her again. Calling whoever she'd left behind in London- that Sherlock guy, and another dude named John. The two apparently lived together, but she avoided the topic beyond that. ****

Firmly denying that he had trust issues, Dean moved toward the bathroom door and pressed his ear to the flimsy wood. He could catch most of Molly's side of the conversation, but there was no hope of hearing whoever it was she was talking to.****

"Of course I'm safe, John. I just... I can't come home yet."****

A pause and Dean could hear Molly moving around the bathroom; a rattleas she pulled down a clean towel and he imagined her unpacking whatever shampoo she used to make her hair smell like lemons and vanilla. ****

"There's something that I have to finish over here, something that I just can't... let go of." ****

There was a thump on the other side of the door that made Dean jump back momentarily before he realized that it was just Molly hanging her pajamas on the hook. ****

"Listen, I know how long it's been and I'm sorry that you were both worried but I have to do this, and I can't just leave them. Dean is a good man and Sam, well... anyway. I've got to go. Give my love to Sarah and Mrs. Hudson, will you? Bye, John." ****

Dean heard Molly sigh loudly before tossing the phone onto the bathroom counter with a loud clatter. The shower curtain zipped across the bar and he backed away from the door. Dean hauled his duffle to the table and spent the next hour while Molly was in the shower and after packing rock salt into shotgun shells. ****

_A good man, _she'd said. If only Dean could believe that.


	2. All Around You

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing related to Sherlock or Supernatural. No copyright infringement intended.

**Author's Note:** Ahoy, fair readers. Thanks for all of your lovely comments on the first part of this. Part two is significantly shorter than the first, and shorter than I'd've liked. However, I figured that it'd been long enough since I'd put anything up for this. Hopefully it won't take me this long to get another 4k part out.

(Small note for any Finding Molly readers who may be here. An update _**is **_coming. It's just... taking longer than I thought it would.)

**...**

_Seven devils all around you_

_Seven devils in my house_

_Seven Devils_

_PART TWO_

And so it went: Molly and Dean went from motel to motel, hunting things and saving people. That part was old news to Dean, it's what he'd been doing since his Dad decided that he was old enough. The only difference was that the person who was _supposed _to be sitting in the passenger's seat and sharing crappy diner food with was instead trailing him across the country in various stolen cars. Sometimes he and Molly would see Sam daily; he'd step in on a hunt, or join them for breakfast. It made Molly uncomfortable, but if he tried hard enough Dean could pretend that shit was normal and not quite so fucked up, for a little while, anyway. Other times they'd go a week or two without seeing the youngest Winchester, and Dean was just glad that he had his avoidance skills honed to a freaking art. He didn't know where Sammy was, he didn't know what Sammy was doing and therefore it wasn't his goddamn problem.

Except that it kind of was, and the nights _that _caught up with him were usually nights that he drank himself into a stupor and barely noticed Molly tugging his boots off and throwing a blanket over him.

He didn't know why Molly was still there. He'd asked her why she hadn't hightailed it back to London, to her friends and job and _life_ and found out that her avoidance skills were nearly on par with his own. It pissed Dean off to no end when she wouldn't give him a straight answer- other than the fact that it was her that Sam was obsessed with, it wasn't her damn business. The logical solution to this was for her to be _away_, out of sight out of mind, right? She, apparently, didn't see it that way.

It wasn't until one night when she requested that they go to Bobby's, who she'd never met, that Dean figured out why she was sticking around. Molly was trying to _fix _Sam.

They hadn't had a job in over a week, and Sammy was MIA. So naturally, things weren't going so well for Dean. When she'd asked, he'd been about half-deep in a bottle of stolen hooch, sitting in the bathtub of their most recent motel room. There had been more of those, more than usual and while Molly claimed she had no problem with sleeping in the car, Dean wasn't a total dick. She was a chick, he wasn't going to make her sleep in the goddamned cramped front seat of the Impala while he snored in the back.

Sure, they could have switched off, taken turns driving while the other stretched out in the back, but... still. Of course, that was ignoring the fact that this particular chick was used to driving on the _wrong _side of the road, and just... no. Not in his baby. She could learn that shit in some random hunk of junk.

Why he was in the bathtub when she started grilling him about going to Bobby's place, Dean didn't know. He liked the shower, did some of his finest thinking there and on the john, and it was just a place he liked to be. Molly perched on the porcelain edge, long hair falling soft around her face, in her sleep shirt with no pants. Like she normally was when she was getting ready for sleep. Always with the no pants, this one.

If Dean had been sober, he'd have put her through the ringer. Why in the hell did she want to go to Bobby's? She'd never even spoken to the man on the phone, as far as Dean knew. But at that particular moment, he was comfortable in his bathtub, his gut was warm and his fingertip were tingling from the rotgut, and so he just shrugged and said, "Sure, whatever, Doc."

**...**

In the years since his old man had met Bobby Singer, and their many trips to Singer Salvage, Dean didn't think that the place had _ever _changed. Not really. Sure, there were new graves here and there (_extremely _well hidden) and there had been some collateral damage over time, but the same rusted out cars sat in the fenced in lot, the big looming garage was the same white metal that had rusted and faded, and then there was the house.

It was one of the few things that Dean was able to really _count _on. Bobby's place. With the chrome and gray table and chairs that had been sitting in the kitchen since Bobby had first gotten married;the bank of phones along one wall, each with its individual label. FBI, CIA, Homeland Security, US Marshall, Game Warden. Whenever they, or any other hunter, needed a viable cover, Bobby had their backs. Always.

The man himself stepped onto the porch as Dean parked, and Molly was out of the car before he could pull the keys from the ignition. He rounded the hood of the car and saw Molly reaching out for a handshake that Bobby readily accepted.

"Molly Hooper. Nice to finally put a face to the voice."

"You as well, Mr. Singer."

"Enough of that crap. Call me Bobby."

Dean was still standing by the car, dumbfounded.

"Don't just stand there tryin' to catch flies, boy! Get your shit and get in here." Bobby had a hand on Molly's shoulder and was steering her into the house. The screen door snapped shut behind them, echoing around the salvage yard.

_What the actual hell?_


	3. Before the Day is Done

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing related to Sherlock or Supernatural.

**Author's Note:** Still not the length I'd've liked, but nothing to sneeze at either. There will be two more chapters after this, around the same length and this story is my priority now until it's finished. And trust me, _**please** _trust me. This story will have is a HEA, for the most part. But I mean, it's a Supernatural Dean-centric story. And let's face it... post S5 Dean's kind of Debbie Downer. Also, and you may have noticed, this is an AU S6 which means that it has some of the characterizations from S6 but really none of the events. It's a wibbly wobbly timey wimey mess, m'kay? Also, we cover quite a bit of time in the chapter.

And to the like... four point five people out there reading this, I love you guys. And if there are more, drop me a line and let me know that you're there, yeah?

**..**

_And no rivers and no lakes can put the fires out_

_I'm gonna raise the stakes; I'm gonna smoke you out_

_Seven devils all around you _

_Seven devils in my house_

_See they were there when I woke up this morning_

_And I'll be dead before the day is done_

PART THREE

For being such a self-professed ladies' man, it took longer than it should have for Dean to notice that Molly had tits. Nice ones. Sure they weren't too big, but they were nice and perky and just enough for a mouthful.

He was leaning in the doorway of the panic room that was under Bobby's house watching her as she sat surrounded by piles of books, yellowed parchments with her cell phone wedged between her shoulder and her face talking to that Sherlock dude again. This time they were discussing his brother. She'd somehow managed to convince him with a minimum of fuss and they were hashing out theories and ideas at a rapid pace. More like Molly was doing research, the dude with the funny name was talking at breakneck speed and Molly was taking notes.

It was hot down in the panic room but Molly said she felt safer; from _what _Dean didn't know. She'd never shown any fear before now, except when in Sam's presence, and they hadn't seen his hide in more than three weeks. She was stripped down to a skimpy-ass pair of cut off shorts and a blood-red tank top (hence the boobage), and all of her long hair was piled on top of her head. Sweat dripped down her neck and Dean followed the trail and then further down the curve of her body with his eyes until _he _felt like the predator.

Whatever. He tore himself away from the room and back upstairs where his baby was waiting for a tune up. She was past overdue.

**..**

Dean and Molly were sitting at the table in Bobby's dining room while Bobby was standing at the stove, frying something for breakfast. He was wearing a flowered apron over his flannel and jeans, the same old faded trucker cap jammed on his head. Dean didn't think he'd ever get tired of this place.

Molly seemed preoccupied. After nearly two weeks straight in the panic room, even eating and sleeping down there, she'd finally come up for air. But she was quiet. She'd always been kind of shy and mousey, but this was a different kind of quiet and Dean really didn't like it much.

Bobby slid a plate in front of Molly, loaded with more food than she would ever eat and then sat down with his own, leaving Dean to make a plate for himself. This wasn't unusual. Bobby took to Molly like fire to gasoline; she actually understood most of the crap he said without him having to repeat himself half a dozen times. Which had to be a nice change, Dean had to admit, but this favoritism crap was getting out of hand.

He watched her pick at her pick at her breakfast like a little bird while barely paying attention to his own food. The heavy grease always did wonders for the liquor that he could still feel mildly swirling in his gut; Dean wasn't used to this much down time. And he liked it even less than the change in Molly's disposition.

**..**

The line clicked dead as Sam disconnected and Dean slumped further into the backseat of one of the old clunkers that sat rusting in the fenced yard. Thick glass of the neck of the bottle of whiskey was familiar under his rough fingers. Liquid smoke slipped past and rolled across his tongue before burning its way down and Dean could feel his muscles let go one by one. The noose that seemed ever-tight around his neck slackened just a _little_ and he could breathe. Just for a few hours, he could breathe.

He was sitting in an '87 Olds Cutlass Supreme that had once been black but was now nearly all rust; the passenger's door opened and the front seat popped forward and Molly slid into the back seat next to him. The bottle slid through his fingers easily as she took it from him and if he weren't already about half-tanked he may have actually protested.

"What are you doing?" she asked, finding the plastic cap in the folds of the seat and twisting it on before tossing the bottle in the front. Golden liquid sloshed against the sides and it rolled onto the floorboard.

"Got to sleep somehow, doc."

"There are better ways to work through this, Dean."

"Don't try to head shrink me. Not your area of expertise."

"True, but that would be such a pathetic way to go after everything you've done. Liver failure, curled up at the bottom of a bottle."

A loud sigh blew past his lips and Dean leaned his head back against the seat, directing his line of sight out the window instead of at the woman next to him whose arm brushed his each time either of them moved. Yellowed light glinted off the glass and metal of the rat's maze of vehicles; there was blood on the moon tonight. A bad omen if Dean ever saw one.

"What are you doing?" he repeated the question back to her, but didn't elaborate; she knew what he meant. And she knew that he was through with her dodging it. "It's been months since Atlantic City, doc."

"I told you that I'm not leaving until—"

"Yeah, yeah, until you _fix _Sam. Get his soul back in his meat. But you gotta help me out here. I—"

"Because, Dean," Molly said on a breath, hesitant, "helping Sam helps you. And you deserve it. You _do_. I know good men when I see them, even when they can't see it in themselves."

For once words caught in Dean's throat, somewhere between the lump that'd taken up residence and his tongue and he couldn't force them passed.

Molly cleared her throat. "Can you teach me to drive tomorrow?"

Dean shot her a look from the corner of his eye.

"I mean, I know _how _to drive, the mechanics of it, but take me out and help me get the hang of driving on the wrong side of the road. And the car. I'm sure one of these clunkers runs…" she trailed off, looking around the scrap yard.

Dean followed her out of the car without retrieving the bottle from the front seat.

**..**

They stayed at Bobby's longer than they'd originally planned. Molly had wrapped up whatever she'd been doing in the panic room, and occasionally Dean would catch her far too deep in thought; chewing on her bottom lip and twisting the ends of her hair. He wanted to know what she'd found, and goddamn it he wanted to _push _her until she told him, but he was a little afraid that Bobby would shoot him. And he didn't want Molly to leave and go back to London. Not anymore.

Dean had wanted them to leave as soon as Molly had finished nerd-gasaming over whatever Bobby had found for her, but Molly convinced him that they should stay.

_I'm not used to life on the road, Dean, _she'd told him. _You're more than welcome to head out on your own, but I'd like to stay for a little while longer. _Then she'd looked up at him and tucked her hair behind her left ear and they stayed for another month.

**..**

In Louisiana, Dean and Molly took out a ghoul that had caught on to the brilliant fact that living flesh was just oh-so-much-more delectable than dead and rotting flesh, just like the ones that had killed Adam and Adam's mom a few years ago.

Molly was slowly but surely becoming a pro and it was kind of painful for Dean to watch; there was really no reason for her to be in the life. But she'd blasted the head off of that ghoul with a double barrel like it was her job and he supposed that now, it was.

They were in the northern part of the state and even though it was nearing the end of September, it was still hot as… well, maybe not _hell_ but it was still pretty damn hot.

They'd gotten a room as they were both dog tired and he'd just gotten out of the shower after washing ghoul-brains off when Molly called to him through the flimsy wooden door.

"Dean?" he could imagine the thin bottom lip curled between white teeth. He liked those lips; different from the plump, glossed ones that usually drew him in. He liked Molly's lips a lot.

Dean grunted, letting her know that he was listening as he began towelling off.

"I—I've just had a call from Sherlock. He says he's found something." She paused and Dean pulled on his boxers, waiting for her to spit out the rest. Sometimes Molly had a little trouble with just spitting it out, especially when she was nervous.

"And?" he finally prompted after nearly a full two minutes of silence.

"Oh, um. I don't think that I could explain it properly. I could call Sherlock back and have him tell you—"

"No! God no." He'd talked to the dude _once _when he'd made the mistake of answering Molly's phone. Never again. "Just… no."

He could hear the slight smile in her voice when she spoke again. "Well, thing is, this something I—I need to go back to London."

And it felt like Dean's heart stopped.

He jerked the door open, still in his boxers, and found Molly ready for sleep too, sitting on her own bed, in an oversized tee-shirt. That thing was back in his throat, words stuck between the lump and his tongue, but he forced them passed this time.

"How long?"

She had one leg under her on the bed and the other crossed over and she was nervously twisting the hem of her _King's College _tee-shirt between her fingers.

"Only about a week or so."

Dean sat on his own bed. "Okay then."

"My flight is day after tomorrow, out of New Orléans. I had Sherlock cover the cost; he owes me enough."

**..**

Dean dropped Molly at the airport entrance among a flurry of other cars and yellow cabs; she only took one duffel bag of clothing and her other… girly crap. Dean didn't know what she kept in there. The rest she left in the back of the Impala and Dean took it as a good sign that maybe she actually would come back. He knew that he should have hoped that she'd stay over there. Go back to the hospital and the job she'd loved so much, back to her friends and her normal life, but for once he couldn't help being just a bit selfish. He wanted her for himself.

But five days after he'd watched her disappear through the glass doors and into the crowds and she hadn't called, Dean didn't hold out much hope.

**..**

Eight days after she left and Bobby hadn't called with any jobs, he didn't know where Sammy was and he hadn't turned anything up in the papers or on the net. Dean had checked into a motel the night before, gotten a few days' supplies of bread, peanut butter and bologna, six bags of chips and a bottle of Jack. He'd gone through half the chips, made himself sick after eating seven bologna sandwiches in a row and was resting his head in his folded arms on the table, starting at the still unopened bottle of whiskey.

Really, the only reason he'd stopped (mostly) was because when they'd been at Bobby's, that'd been about two and a half months now, Molly had told him that at the rate he was going he was going to die a miserable old man who would be unable to take an unassisted piss without crying like a three-year-old girl confronted with Pennywise the Clown.

He'd stared at her blankly for a few moments before reminding her that it was extremely unlikely that he'd live to be that old anyway.

And _she'd _oh so politely punched him in the arm and told him that with _her _badass watching his back, he'd live too tottering senility.

After thinking back to what'd been like as an old man after losing a particularly memorable poker game, he'd slowly cut back until he barely picked up the bottle at all.

But now? Now he didn't have Molly's _badass _watching his back or her _ass _in any form, so what did it really matter?

Dean's phone rang, buzzing against the wood next to his elbow and he flicked it open without looking at the display.

"Yeah?"

"Dean?" It was Molly.

Immediately he sat up and his attention dropped away from the bottle. "Where are you?"

"Standing outside Louis Armstrong International Airport," she said. "Where are you? Are you still in Louisiana?"

"Uh, yeah. Still in New Orleans, actually. You want me to come and get you?" That weird thing was happening in his throat again, but for an entirely different reason. _She came back_.

"No, I'll take a cab. What motel?"

An hour later she was knocking at the door and Dean didn't even really think it through when he pulled it open; his hands splayed across her back and he kissed those lips that he liked so much.

They didn't leave the room, except to refuel, for three days. Dean made, and enforced, a strict _no-clothes-while-in-the-room _rule that Molly was only too happy to comply with.

**..**

"We need to find Sam."

Dean looked over at her from where he was packing the last of their things into his bag. She was sitting on the bathroom counter, running a hair brush through her nearly waist length hair. It was the first time either one of them had brought up her reason for leaving since she'd come back four days before.

"So, you and Sherlock uh—"

Molly just nodded and hopped off the counter, tossing the brush into her bathroom bag. "I need Sam to be physically present for it to work. But yes, I found a way."

Dean tried to stamp down the surge of hope that rose in his chest but it was there just the same. He could have his brother back. _Sammy_. For so long, it'd been the two of them. There had been times over the years that they'd separated; Stanford, Hell, when Sam couldn't handle it because he started the Apocalypse. But in the end it'd always been the two of them. Dean looked up as Molly brushed passed, tucking her bathroom bag into his duffel. _Not just the two of them anymore. _

"We're gonna need Bobby's help tracking him, then. Sam's pretty much off the grid."

Molly slipped into her shoes. "The phones?"

"All disconnected."

"Alright then."

**..**

Dean and Molly tracked Sam from the road; following every lead they find. Whether Sam may be hunting the monster or Sam _was _the monster. Bobby put feelers out wherever he could, calling in favors with old acquaintances, but there were few hunters left who wanted to get involved with the Winchester family.

Everyone in the community knew they were cursed, and few wanted to cast in with that mess.

They cross the country, followed hunt after hunt, and for the most part it seemed that Sam was hunting instead of being hunted.

There was a ghost in Kansas City

A nest of vampires in Ohio; ("no, Molly, they're _not _like friggin' _Twilight._")

Demons infested a small town in Indiana.

Rival packs of werewolves in Missouri.

A coven of witches in Phoenix.

Sam tore through them recklessly, Dean and Molly arriving days, sometimes hours, after he'd blow town.

It took them six months to catch up with Sam, and when they did Dean wished with every goddamn cell of his body that they'd just left it the hell alone.

**..**

The wraith hadn't picked a mental institution as its all-you-can-eat like the last one he'd met; an old folks home was the venue this time and they found Sam mid-hunt. He'd been posing as an orderly and had singled the thing out and cornered it in the dining room.

A greying, middle-aged male humanoid threw Sam halfway across the room taking out a few tables and Molly and Dean surged forward; they'd become a fluid team in their time together. Wrist spike disabled, Dean tossed his silver knife to Molly, confident in her ability to take the thing out solo and crossed the room to secure his baby brother before he had a chance to disappear again.

The unabashed fury that he saw carved across Sam's face made something inside of him shiver but it wasn't directed at Dean; Sam was staring at Molly as she slid the knife to the hilt into the wraith's skull, through the bottom of its jaw.

Dean clamped a hand down onto Sam's shoulder. "Just don't even look at her."

**..**

They got another room because Molly said that she needed to call Sherlock and come up with a 'game plan'. Sam didn't put up any resistance, even though he had to have known that they'd been trying to find him for the past six-months.

Sam never took his eyes off of Molly, but it was different than it'd always been before; complete fascination and lust had been replaced with something that resembled disgust.

Dean leaned against the dresser, arms across his chest, on alert. Molly was fishing in his jacket pocket that was hanging on the back of one of the chairs for his phone and Sam was between them, hands clenched into fists, tendons in his neck straining.

Molly had his phone open and was scrolling through the contacts when Sam finally spoke. "What did you do?"

Her fingers paused. "What I had to," she said after a moment.

Before Dean could push-off the dresser, Sam had taken two angry steps toward Dean's girl. "I don't want it!"

It was over in half a second. Something Dean himself had taught his brother when he'd been nineteen and Sam had been fifteen. Sam's long fingers under the heavy fall of Molly's hair, something Dean himself had done countless times over the past several months before he took her mouth with his own.

With the right pressure, and a quick twist, it was over.

And she was on the ground, not moving.

**End Author's Note:** Oh yeah. Warning for character death.


	4. It's a Battle Cry

**Disclaimer**: I own nothing related to Supernatural or Sherlock.

**Author's Note**: Warning for a slightly disturbing theme and excessive Dean memories.

PART FOUR

_**And now all your love will be exorcised**_

_**And we will find your sayings to be paradox**_

_**And it's an even sum**_

_**It's a melody**_

_**It's a battle cry**_

_**It's a symphony**_

Dean Winchester had experienced death many times in his relatively short years. His mother's, father's, brother's; his own. He remembered when Sam died, the first time- everything seemed to slow down in those few horrible minutes. Dean could still remember cold night air, a dirt road under his boots, moonlight glinting off a wicked sharp blade. But with Molly- with Molly time was in fast-forward. She was on the floor and still, so still. There was a brief blinding flash of white light but Dean was trying to _process_- Molly was gone.

Vaguely he registered that Sam was on the ground too, knocked backward several feet but he only had eyes for slender limbs and soft brown hair.

She was laying on her stomach, arms by her head and legs at a funny angle, where she had landed. Her hair covered most of her face and spilled like water downer her back and shoulders, over the cherry printed sweater she'd been wearing. Slowly, he approached her. Dean sunk down indian-style next to Molly and carefully wrapped his fingers around her left wrist. His rough fingertips scraped against her soft skin, more abrasive than usual, like he knew that he wasn't supposed to be touching her. Confirming what he already knew. No thrum of life remained inside her, though her flesh was still warm.

Dean snatched his hand away, clamped it over his mouth, forcing down the emotion that was building up. He rocked backward away from his girl and noticed that Sam was slowly sitting up.

Hair falling across his face, his brother (_murderer_) was looking around, disoriented. Sam's eyes finally landed on Dean.

"Dean?" his voice was like what Dean remembered as a kid. "What's going on?"

For a few serious moments, Dean considered shooting his brother in the face.

Then, as if someone had done it for him, Sam's face crumpled like paper and he folded in on himself. The sound of retching filled the room, the meaty stink of vomit, and Dean hear a low muttering, "oh god, oh god, oh god."

And he knew. Dean knew then that somehow Sam's soul was back. The blinding light, the force knocking Sam to the ground- the youngest Winchester had his soul back.

…

Usually a man hyperaware of his surroundings, Dean was always thrown off balance by memory lapses. And he was having a big one, because he couldn't remember how he'd gotten here.

In the bathroom of the motel room, huddled against the cold porcelain side of the tub and Molly- she was _gone_ but she was here. On ice. And Dean couldn't remember doing it, or how it'd happened, or how long they'd been there.

…

**Singer Salvage**

**Sioux Falls, South Dakota**

**Seven Months Earlier**

"What are you doing?" It was such a common question from her.

Dean had the hood of Bobby's car propped open- he'd already done a complete tune-up on his baby and was doing the same to Bobby's. Not that Bobby wasn't fully capable f doing it himself, but Dean needed to do _something _to keep himself occupied now that they were going to be staying for a while longer.

"Tune up," he said, wiping his hands on the red shop rag hanging from the back pocket of his jeans. He'd gone over the basics- spark plugs, distributor cap, ignition points, tranny fluid, coolant, filters- the only thing left to do was an oil change. He lowered the hood, making sure it was latched, and Molly leaned against the car next to him, handing Dean a bottle.

"Soda? Really?"

Molly just raised an eyebrow in challenge. Dean shrugged and twisted the top off, taking a long drink. Carbonation tickled his nose.

"Are you finished?"

"Nearly. I just have to lift her up and change the oil." He finished the soda and burped loudly, making Molly wrinkle her nose, but he grinned when she laughed anyway.

"Can I help?" Molly asks, looking over the various tools Dean was pulling out.

At his look, Molly said, "What? I'm very good with my hands."

Dean just shook his head, but said, "Sure, why not?" He tossed her a piece of cardboard to lay on underneath the car, and started jacking it up.

Later, when they're finished and eating sandwiches in Bobby's kitchen and she has engine grease on the end of her nose, is the first time he remembers wanting to kiss her.

…

It's been three days by his best count. A familiar rotting smell is beginning to fill the room and he can't bring himself to look directly at her anymore because of the slight greenish tinge to her her once peach skin. Soon he knows that she'll be marbled, like a nice cut of steak in a supermarket, and he doesn't know what he'll do then. Maybe just climb in and let himself drown in the melting ice.

The only time he leaves is to get more in the small brown plastic bucket, dumping it as gently as he can around her body into the dirty water.

Dean takes great gulping drinks from the bathroom sink and doesn't think about eating at all.

…

**Singer Salvage**

**Sioux Falls, South Dakota**

**Six Months Earlier**

Something smelled... fantastic. So good that Dean had to check his chin for drool and it brought him in from the dooryard of Bobby's place, into the house and to the kitchen. He'd been trying to call Sam again, with no luck. He hadn't been able to get him to pick up since the night Molly had taken his whiskey away from him in the back of the Impala.

Dean shook the thought of. There was good food to be sniffed out, and he was just the guy for the job. He couldn't place the smell but it was making his stomach grumble loudly and when he stuck his head into the kitchen he spotted Molly stirring something in a large skillet on the stove. She added something from a small bowl and Dean frowned.

"Did you just put eggs in that?" he asked.

"Mmm," she nodded.

"_What _are you making?"

She scooped up a bunch of white, tube kind of _bean _looking things and added them to the skillet. It still smelled great, but Dean was beginning to have serious doubts about it's edibility. Maybe she was cooking up some sort of ...weird potion for Bobby? Yeah, that sounded reasonable.

"Pad thai," Molly told him. She stirred the concoction in the skillet a few more times before flicking off the heat. "It's a favorite of mine. Haven't had it in ages."

"... _pad thai_?"

"Yes. Chicken, to be exact."

"At least there's meat in it."

"Even if it isn't red or deep fried?"

"Shaddup."

Dean pulled out a chair and sat at the table. He watched as Molly dumped her _chicken pad thai _onto a big ass plate, put a bunch of chopped up peanuts on top of the noodles before cutting up a lime and adding that to the plate as well because _why not_. It's the only sense Dean could make of it.

Molly gathered Bobby and then she was handing him a plate of pad thai and dumplings. Bobby dug in without complaint and with gusto- Dean eyed his food warily. He picked up a dumpling with his fingers.

"You make these too?"

Molly slurped noodles, swallowed and nodded. "Closest I'm gonna get to take-away."

After another look at Bobby, who seemed to be doing okay, Dean took a bite of a dumpling. The look he gave Molly was full of wonder.

"It's- it's like a small, steamy pocket of magic."

She snorted and ate more noddles and chicken.

Later, after the three were finished eating, Bobby leveled Molly with a serious look. "Forget going back on the road. I ain't lettin' you leave."

Molly blushed, laughed until she snorted and told Dean that he was doing the dishes.

…

Dean knows that Sam is in the room beyond the bathroom. He can hear him moving around; a chair pushing across the carpet, bed springs squeaking, sometimes his hushed voice. Never once does he try to talk to Dean or come into the bathroom, so Dean knows that he must have rented another room.

On the fifth day, on his way back into the bathroom that seems to be filled with a _fog _with a fresh bucket of pointless ice tucked under his arm, Dean grabs the styrofoam container of food that had been sitting on the floor outside the bathroom door. He doesn't speak to Sam, doesn't look at him. He can't. He knows that he would probably kill him.

…

**Three Sisters Motel**

**Dayton Ohio**

**Five Months Earlier**

It was a changeling that gave Molly her first on-the-job injury. It'd only been a few weeks since Louisiana and they were on Sam's trail and Dean and Molly had- well, a new facet had been added to their relationship. Dean wasn't really one to throw around _feelings _talk, and Molly seemed just as content as he was to leave things the way they were.

Still didn't stop the lurches in Dean's gut whenever she brushed against him, or the fact that she made him _blush _the other day by talking about his dick while they were eating pancakes at Denny's. Or that it felt like his heart stopped when the mother changeling had thrown her into a cement column and then Molly hit the ground and didn't move. Even then, a full twenty-four hours later, Dean wasn't sure how he'd lit the thing on fire with just his zippo and a little thing of anti-bacterial thing he'd found in Molly's jacket pocket when he'd gone over to make sure she was still breathing.

She had been, and he got her back to their room and checked her over. Molly was put out with his fussing, but she had a few busted ribs and that was nothing to mess around with.

"I'm a doctor, Dean. I'll be fine, I know what I'm talking about," she said petulantly from the bed.

"You know you can't pull the doctor card every time you don't get your way. And I've been doing this since I was a kid, think _I _know what _I'm _talking about."

"I worked at one of the most prestigious hospitals in England."

"Yeah, in the _morgue_."

Molly stuck her bottom lip out and _pouted. _Dean couldn't hold in his chuckle as he brought her a styrofoam cup filled with soup and another container with a sandwich. He handed her the soup_,_ put the sandwich on the bedside table and grabbed his own food, sitting in the chair beside the bed.

…

Five days, by his count. Sam had begun trying to get him to come out. Dean had to turn on the exhaust fan because the smell was so bad, he couldn't breathe.

Foam containers were stacked in the space between the sink and the floor.

He doesn't answer Sam when he talks quietly through the door, and when Sam's voice goes even lower, Dean knows he's on the phone.

Nearly a week and Dean hasn't showered, brushed his teeth, , changed clothes or shaved. His face his haggard and he doesn't look at himself or Molly anymore; he's pulled the shower curtain between them. The smell from her body is only _slightly _worse than the one from his own.

…

**Heyday Motel**

**Marion, Indiana**

**Three Months Earlier**

It had taken Dean a little while to realize that he loved her. For him, any type of love that wasn't familial was so rare that the _feeling_ of it wasn't something that he could recognize easily.

They'd just cleaned up after one of Sam's messes; his brother had taken out a group of demons, but hadn't bothered with any damage control. The cops in the Indiana town were still suspicious, but Dean didn't think they'd be putting out any APB's out on a guy that according to their records, was dead. Back at the motel, Dean and Molly had climbed into the shower together- water conservation was something that Molly was very, ah, _passionate_ about- and Dean had only pulled on a pair of boxers and crawled into bed. He was bone tired.

This motel room was the type where the sink and mirror stretched along a counter outside the bathroom and he lay on his side watching Molly brush her teeth. She had one leg bent at the knee, toes curled, and her hair was wet down her back. It soaked the faded black of Dean's Zeppelin shirt that she was wearing. Her legs were bare; she had a small cluster of freckles on the back of her left knee. Molly spit, rinsed and then crossed the room to join him in bed.

She gave Dean a minty kiss, then turned in his arms, wet hair ticking his face and Dean couldn't help thinking about the weight that was in his chest. The one that'd been there since he'd gone to Hell, and the one that Molly had lightened by more than half. He didn't have his brother by his side, like he should have; he didn't know what Sammy was doing at that ate at that part of the weight that wouldn't go away.

Dean knew that things were far from perfect, but he felt happy.

He hadn't felt this way... ever, he didn't think. Sure, he'd been okay back in the days when it was he and Sam on the road, but there'd always been _something_.

And there was something now, but there was also Molly.

It was like she could breathe light into the dark places of his world and then banish the demons lurking there in perfect fucking Latin.

She'd brought him back to life.

Dean slept peacefully that night.

…

He'd never told Molly that he loved her. He'd always meant to, but it never seemed to be the _right time_.

…

Dean was asleep on the floor of the bathroom, laying on top of a rug with a rolled up towel under his head. He was woken up by someone throwing the door open, flicking the lights on and grabbing him by the collar of his blue flannel shirt. Without looking, he knew that it was Bobby.

Bobby dragged him from the bathroom by his shirt and pushed him into the chair by the door. Bitting down on his lips, Dean tried to push back up but bobby keeps him sitting with a hand to the chest. Bobby sits on the edge of the bed closest to Dean's chair, keeping a tight grip on Dean's shirt.

Dean can't look at anything but the floor, but he hears Bobby's voice like a radio signal.

"You can't go back in there. It's got to stop now, son. All this has gone on long enough."

For the first time in a long time Bobby pulls Dean into a hug, and Dean soaks the front of Bobby's flannel shirt with buckets of salty tears.

…

Dean was lead by Bobby into the room next door with a change of clothes and a set of clean towels. No shaving razor. Dean doesn't think Bobby trusts him with one. He stays in the shower long after the water turns to ice and comes out in clean clothes but still a week of beard growth. Bobby was waiting by the door.

"I wrapped her in a sheet, put her in the back of the Impala. It's time to bury her, Dean."

Dean follows Bobby's word like it's gospel, because it's all he can seem to hear. Out in the parking lot the sun was bright and Bobby already has the keys in hand. Dean sees Sam standing by the car.

"Just stay the hell away." They're the first words he's spoken in a week and they come out like gravel. Dean slides into the passenger's seat and doesn't look in the back.

…

Bobby tells him that he looked for a spot on the way in, and is that alright with Dean? Dean doesn't answer him, but thinks that it doesn't really matter one way or another. The place Bobby found in under a willow tree, in a secluded area that they can't drive to. Dean doesn't ask what Bobby was doing all the way out here.

He digs the hole and wonders why he's not feeling more; maybe he left all of his emotions back in that bathroom with the now permanent ring of dirt and human skin around the tub. He and Bobby lower her together, and Bobby says that he wants to give her a hunter's funeral.

_Imagine it_, Dean thinks. _Molly salted and burned. No. _

"No," he says. "Someone brought me back. Sam came back. Maybe..."

Bobby nods. "You wanna say a few words?"

Dean looks down at her wrapped body in the dirt hole, water logged body and dark soaked hair showing through the white sheet. He shakes his head no.

"I'd- I mean. Molly and me talked a lot when you two were at my place. Think she flicked through every book I had. She stumbled across this- told me that she read it a lot when her old man kicked it. Do you, I mean I'm going to anyway, but do you care if I-"

"Just go ahead Bobby."

"Right." Bobby pulled a crumpled piece of paper from his jeans pocket and smoothed it out the best he could. Then he read.

"Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,

Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,

Silence the pianos with muffled drum

Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead

Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead.

Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,

Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves

He was my North, my South, My Easy and West,

My working week and my Sunday rest,

My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song

I though that love would last forever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one.

Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,

Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.

For nothing now an ever come to any good."

…

Bobby drove back to the motel and Sam came out of his room as he put the Impala in park.

"Go ahead inside," Dean said. Bobby gives him a look, and Dean just shakes his head. "I need to make a call."

Sam and Bobby hover by the motel room door and Dean searches in his jacket pocket for his phone. It must have been put back in there sometime during the past week. He scrolls down to the same contact Molly had been searching for when- Dean glanced up at Sam briefly before bringing the phone to his ear, the feelings he thought he'd left in the bathroom now clenching in his gut like a fist.

"Yes?" a haughty sounding man snapped on the other end. "Molly, I have been attempting to reach you for days-"

"It's- uh, it's not Molly."

"Oh. Right. What was your name again?"

Dean knew, from what Molly had told him that this dude remember _exactly _what his name was, and most likely knew what type of toppings he liked on his pizza and who he lost his virginity to.

"Dean. My name is Dean."

"Anyway. Where is Molly?"

And Dean didn't know any other way to say it. "She's dead."

"I see," Sherlock said on the other end, his tone never changing. "Your brother, I can assume?"

Dean closed his eyes and turned his face away from the motel. "Yeah. Do you-"

"Know what's happened with your brother's soul? Of course I do."

"She said that the two of you figured it out when she went there, but she never told me what."

"Molly never came here, Dean," Sherlock said dismissively. "What's been done with her remains?"

"I buried her. Wait, what do you mean she never- what did she do?"

"She didn't want you to know. I will respect that. Now if you'll excuse me, she had friends that I must inform."

And then Dean was left with a dial tone.

…

End Author's Note: I'm sorry. I forgot to warn you that this chapter is the devil, and it will try to rip your heart out through your knee caps. Thank you for your reviews, I love you all, and please stick with me. As hard as it may be to believe right now, this story will have a happy ending.

_Funeral Blues__ by W.H. Auden, final, familiar form published in 1938._ (It's not mine and I don't own it either.)


	5. Can It Be Undone

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing related to Supernatural or Sherlock.

**Author's Note:** It should be noted that I'm like Dean when it comes to research; I rarely do it, and only when I must. So if I've gotten anything wrong, or if anything isn't quite cohesive here, please forgive me.

PART FIVE

_**They can keep me alive**_

_**'Til I tear the walls**_

_**'Til I slave your hearts**_

_**And they take your souls**_

_**And what have we done?**_

_**Can it be undone?**_

_**In the evil's heart**_

_**In the evil's soul**_

The roadhouse is smokey and dirty. His hand is wrapped around a thick glass tumbler halfway filled with golden liquid fire. It's not the first of the night. Or the first in the past two months since- well, since _then. _Dean sips it, the warmth curls in his belly and he slumps further in the stool by the long wooden bar.

A girl, teased blonde hair, tight dress, legs to forever, big tits and heavy make up, slips onto the leather stool next to him with a coy smile and a drink in her hand. Dean misses long braids, baggy tan pants, his old tee shirts too big on a small frame and sometimes those ridiculous kitten sweaters.

"Sorry, sweetheart," he says to the girl. "I'm unavailable."

"Your loss," she tells him with a shrug and walks away.

Dean thinks that a girl like that would have sent Molly into one of her bouts of insecurity, then he decides that he's thinking too much if he's thinking at all and asks the bartender for the bottle.

…

He's come back to himself, mostly. It's been five months since he lost Molly and he's begun showering and shaving regularly again, and he's taken himself off the hooch. Dean's started hunting again, and even he's noticed that the monsters are acting crazier than usual. He took down a freaking Lamia in Wisconsin last week and Molly had always told him that those things hardly ever left Greece.

Something was rumbling, and he could feel it. And Dean knew that it was time to call Bobby.

He hadn't spoken to him since they'd parted ways after burying Molly months ago. More like after Dean had snuck away after talking to Sherlock and discovering that Molly had lied to him. He still didn't know about what. It didn't matter. What difference could it make now?

The Impala is parked on an abandoned stretch of dirt road somewhere in Missouri, and Dean was stretched out in the back after a few hour's sleep. Already wincing over the load of crap Bobby was going to give him, he fished his phone out of his jeans pocket and scrolled through the contacts.

"I should kick the ever-lovin' shit outta you, boy."

"Good to hear your voice, Bobby."

"Shut up. Do you have any idea how worried we've been?"

Dean knows well who Bobby's talking about when Bobby says _we_. "I know, I know, but-"

"Don't give me your excuses. You really don't think I know what you've been going through these last months? My question is, did you forget how to work a damn phone?"

He stayed quiet for a few moments. "You done?"

"Not nearly. But that's enough for now. You need to high-tail your ass to my place, pronto. We've got another Big-Bad on our hands."

"You been watching _Buffy_ again, old man?"

"Shut the hell up," Bobby huffs before hanging up.

Dean slips the phone back into his pocket, changes into fresh clothes there in the back. He climbs into the front to brush his teeth, spitting water out the window, and decides to head straight to Sioux Falls, doing his best not to remember the fact that the last time he was on the road there, Molly was in the passenger's seat.

The engine grumbles and the tires eat up the miles and Dean knows with near certainty that Sam will be at Bobby's. He also knows that the thing that killed his Molly wasn't his brother, just a thing that looked like him.

He just hopes that he'll be able to handle seeing it right in front of his face.

…

It wasn't as bad as he thought that it would be. Meaning that he thought he wouldn't be able to clamp down any homicidal instinct lurking inside of him, but he did. Dean kept his cool. He still couldn't look Sam in the eye, but he thought that being in the same room with him without wanting to bash his face in was really great personal progress.

Bobby'd been calling around to some other hunters, and gets the same reports; monsters all over the place were acting up and acting weird. In fact, it was looking more and more like every freaking thing was going insane. More research provided us with a name: Mother of All, or Eve for short. And apparently this pompous bitch was out to cause a big goddamn stir.

Even after sticking around Bobby's place with him and Sam for a few months, hunting, finding ways to ice Eve (something Dean never thought he'd find himself saying), Dean didn't know how to act around his little brother. He and Sam had been through some shit. Some of it had been pretty heavy; Dean had always shrugged and pulled on even bigger shit-kicking boots and moved on. But Dean figured that if it took him a little longer to get over the fact that Sam's _shell _had killed the love of his life, no one would really blame him.

…

With a bottle of water tucked under one arm and a handful of sandwich, Dean made to leave the kitchen and retreat to the closet-sized room he'd made his in Bobby's small house. Until he overheard Bobby and Sam talking in the study.

"Did you have any luck calling him?"

Dean pressed himself against the wall outside the study just as he heard Sam sigh heavily. "No. No answer at all. Guess leading an army in heaven is really taking it out of him."

His stomach lurched at the mention of Cas, who hadn't been answering prayers since Sam came back from the cage without his soul.

"We have to bring her back, Bobby," Sam said. "After what she did for me-"

"She didn't do _nothin' _for you, boy. She did what she did so Dean could have his damn brother back."

Molly. They were talking about Molly. And from the _way _they were talking, Dean knew that they knew. They knew what Sherlock had been talking about, what Molly had done to get Sam's soul back. As much as he told himself that he didn't need to know, that it didn't matter, the answer was _right there_.

Pushing himself off the wall, Dean rounded the door of the study and casually walked in, chewing on his sandwich. And from the way they look at him, there's no denying they know that he was listening in.

"Tell me," is all Dean says. "I have a goddamned _right _to know."

Bobby slumps in his chair behind the desk and Sam turns toward Dean, posture almost defensive. "You want it sugarcoated?" At Dean's glare, Sam nods sharply.

"I could tell what she'd done that night. Her soul, it wasn't the same. It was... dirty. Tainted. It'd always been so pure, and I could _smell _it but that night- as soon as you two stepped in on the wraith hunt-"

"Stop pussyfooting around-"

"She made a deal, Dean."

The stab of nausea that passes through him is so strong that he has to sit down. The rest of his sandwich and the bottle of water hit the carpet and Dean feels like his insides are trying to turn their way out.

"She... what?" he shook his head. "No. How- how could you know this?"

"We tortured a crossroads demon," Bobby said, speaking up for the first time since Dean joined the conversation.

"What we've managed to piece together is that Molly made a deal with a demon in Louisiana. Her soul for mine, pretty much. She had to find me, get me to a crossroads, summon the demon and it would be a done thing."

"How much time would she have had if-" Dean started to ask.

"The usual ten years," Bobby answered.

"So when she said that she was going to London, she was really..."

Dean caught Sam's nod, but his brother won't look up from the floor. And Sherlock- he knew too. He probably put the idea in her head. Maybe not, but Dean needed someone to blame and if he started blaming Sam again, well... Sam was within shooting distance. There was an ocean between Dean and That Fucker.

And then it hit him. Molly made a deal. She made a _Deal_. All of these months, he'd been able to live with the fact that Molly was resting peacefully in heaven. But if she died with a barter on her soul, then that meant that-

That meant that Molly was in hell.

…

No matter how much shit Eve was stirring up, she was put on the back-burner. Number one priority, since they'd seen fit to clue him in, was getting Molly out of the pit. Dean knew damn well what happened to people who made deals; he knew what was waiting for them in the fire. It gave hell an entirely new meaning.

His first shot was trying to pray to Castiel- he pulled Dean out, he could do the same for Molly. But like it'd been for months, the line was perpetually busy. Heaven couldn't come to the phone.

They tried summoning and torturing another crossroads demon; they weren't giving her up. It was just _too much fun _having Dean Winchester's girl on the rack. Dean took personal satisfaction in torching those bones.

Meanwhile, Dean couldn't stop thinking. Molly had been gone seven months. That was seventy years in hell. He wondered if they would offer her the same deal they gave him and his old man. He wouldn't blame her if she took it, but he knew Molly.

She used to talk about how much she liked dissecting cadavers; how she liked taking things apart so she could see how they worked. But Molly could also never stand to actually _hurt _anyone. She cried once when Dean ran over a squirrel, saying that he was probably a dad squirrel trying to get food back to baby squirrels who would _starve _now.

Sam comes to him one afternoon while Dean is researching ways into hell. He knew, by the way his brother sat with his arms on his knees, hair brushed back from his face, that Sam wanted to talk.

"Look," Sam begins. "I just- I never-"

"Don't," Dean cuts him off. "Just don't. Please." He pushes back from the book he was pouring over, crushing the heels of his hands against his eyes. Some of the text is still there when he closes his eyes, and he can feel a headache building in his temples. "That wasn't you. That did that to her, it wasn't you. And honestly, I can't handle all of this shit at once. I just can't. I mean, before? When I thought that she was- I was coping, you know? Still wasn't right she was gone, but at least she was at peace. But... I remember hell, Sam. Do you?"

Sam nods, brows furrowed.

"Molly is- it makes me sick. We have to get her out of there. She doesn't even have to be alive, man. She just can't be _there."_

…

Dean has a plan. All history counted, Dean's plans rarely work out the way they're supposed to, however he _knows _this one will work.

"You wanna do _what_?" Bobby practically shouts.

"You heard me. I want to find a way into hell, a non unleashing-legions-of-demons way, and drag Molly back out with me."

"Have you finally lost what little mind you've got left?"

"You're not going alone."

Bobby and Sam speak at the same time, Bobby glaring at the younger Winchester before dropping his head into his hands and groaning. "And how do you think you're gonna carry out this suicide mission of yours?" Bobby asks.

"We don't have the rings anymore, so that's out," Dean says, "but there are other ways. I've been reading-"

"_You've _been reading?" Bobby asks, interrupting.

"Shaddup. I've been _reading _and there are reported entry points to hell all over the world. I- I mean we," Dean corrects at Sam's look, "find one that's legit, go in, find Molly and slip back out again."

"Okay, yeah, sure. And just how do you think you're gonna get out again?"

"The same way we get in?" Sam asks.

Dean looks at him and shrugs, then says, "Take care of this Eve business after?"

Sam gives him a nod/shrug combo before swiping one of the books that Dean left laying on Bobby's desk and cracking it open.

"You're _both _insane. You're just gonna _wing _something like this?"

"When don't we?" they answer together.

"What if you can't find your way back again?"

They both shrug again, without looking up from their books.

"You two idjits are trying to kill me. Again."

…

Dean and Sam were ready to go.

Apparently the _real _gate to hell was in a sewer drain in Jersey; they're packed with the Colt, the demon-killing knife, flasks of holy water. The plan was to slip in as quietly as possible, find Molly without attracting attention, kill whatever demon had her on the rack and then haul ass out of there.

_Yes. Because that's going to work_.

Dean was sitting on the edge of the bed furthest from the door in the cheep Jersey motel room they'd rented, Sam standing at the table. Both were silently double checking weapons, when there was a loud _banging _at the door.

They both drew their guns and Sam moved to the door, using his large frame to look through the peephole while keeping his body out of the way. "No. Fucking. Way," Dean hears him mutter, before pulling the door open, gun held loosely in his hand.

Dean stands from the bed. "But- you died! We saw it!"

The angel Gabriel rolls his eyes. "Like Lucy could really keep _me _down? Besides, who actually stays dead around here?" Gabriel tosses his head, flicking a few pieces of hair away from his eyes. "Oh!" he says, as if remembering something. "Speaking of which."

Gabriel reaches to his left and Dean, who has slid his gun back into his jeans, moves closer to see what Gabriel has grabbed. Slowly, he pulls a woman in front of him.

A woman with long, loose brown hair, wearing tan pants and a cherry printed sweater.

"But- but... what? How?" Sam stumbles over his words.

Dean feels like everything inside of him is frozen. Molly hasn't moved; she's obviously dazed. Blinking at the floor, biting down on her lower lip, small hands curled into fists.

"You two nimrods were going to get yourselves killed, and we can't have that, can we? And with Eve around- she's a real bitch, isn't she?- I thought you could use this." Gabriel starts brushing Molly off. Her hair, clothing, every bit of her; covered in a layer of dirt and ash.

Her eyes are darting around frantically, until Dean finally takes a step toward her.

"...Molly?" he asks. A part of him doesn't believe it- it has to be a trick, right? This asshole did parade around as a trickster for who knew how long. But another part of him- she was _here_. In front of him.

Her eyes snap up and lock onto his- brown crashing with hazel. Dean moves forward a little more and Molly's mouth works. He wonders if she's had anything to drink yet. Dean remembers what it was like after months in the grave. The dryness that ran all the way from your tongue to your gut. Then he wonders if she had to dig her way out of the grave he'd put her in.

She's staring at him with wide eyes. "Are- are you real?" she asks. Her voice is clear, if soft, and Dean knows that he owes Gabriel big time. He took care of Dean's girl.

Dean just nods and then he finally reaches her, touching her cheek. Mud and dirt and ash fall to the green carpet where his fingertips brush along the bone under the flesh and skin and _warmth_. And then without thinking, he pulls her to him, against his chest and his arms are tight around her. Her hair tickles his nose and it smells like fire and brimstone and earth but he knows that it will be lemon and vanilla again.

Slowly, tentatively, Molly's arms come up loose at is waist and Dean can tell that she's still not sure if this is real. Then, dampness against his tee-shirt and her heaving breaths and they're both crying.

"Oh _God_. Gag me," Gabriel mutters where he's standing by the door with Sam.

Dean hears a rustling of fabric and the door opening and closing, and he'll have to ask Sam later how he bodily removed an archangel from the room.

But later. Much later.

…

**Author's Note:** So yes. Molly wasn't dead for long. Hope you're okay with that. Thank you for all of the lovely reviews and I'm sorry that I didn't get to reply for the last chapter. I promise I'll do better for this one.

One more chapter to go folks.

Drop me a line, if you'd like.


	6. In Your House-Epilogue

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing related to Supernatural or Sherlock.

**Author's Note:** My reasoning for sending Molly to hell: she needed to go somewhere she'd actually want to come back from. Couldn't be ripping her out of heaven, could I? Thanks to everyone who read and reviewed. Anyway, this is the last one. It's more of an epilogue than anything else. On a bonus, there's hardly any angst.

PART SIX

_**Seven devils all around you**_

_**Seven devils in your house**_

_**See I was dead when I woke up this morning**_

Dean found himself sitting on the floor of a motel bathroom again; only this time, Molly was alive and showering on the other side of the curtain. Sam had gotten her things that Dean had been carrying around in the Impala for the past seven months, and the room was filled with lemon and vanilla instead of the harsh stink of rot.

She kept peeking around the pale blue shower curtain, spraying droplets of water, a little cleaner each time. Dean knew she was making sure that he was still there. That this was real.

When she's finished, she slips on his old Zeppelin tee-shirt, his favorite on her, and a pair of white panties with little pink hearts on them. The room is quiet, almost like both of them are afraid to risk waking up by speaking.

Sam has booked another room in the motel, just a few doors down from theirs and Gabriel left shortly after arriving. Off to help Cas with the big civil war upstairs, he guesses.

They settle on the bed he'd originally claimed as his, furthest from the door, side by side with their back against the headboard. Dean's legs are splayed out in front of him, while Molly has hers pulled against her chest, toes tucked just under the white sheet. She's tied her hair into one long braid over her shoulder, and the damp end brushes Dean's elbow.

Finally, Dean clears his throat. "Do you-" he stops, clears his throat again. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"No." Her voice is still soft. The few times she's spoken since Gabriel showed up with her at the door, her voice has been soft- timid.

Dean can accept that. He knew that he sure as hell didn't want to talk about his time in the pit when he came back, and he wouldn't expect anyone else to open up about it either. He can only thank fuck that Sam had already taken that bastard Alistair out; had that sick son of a bitch gotten his hands on Molly... And he would have too. Alistair would have just _loved _that. A small part of his mind can't help but wonder who was running the torture pit in hell now.

"Does anyone know that I'm back?" Molly asks, settling slightly against his bare side. The skin-to-skin contact has been almost constant since she'd been back, nearly twenty-four hours ago.

"Sam called Bobby. That's it."

Molly clears her throat and her voice is a little clearer. "I need your phone, then."

Dean reached over the side of the bed and grabbed his jeans from the day before; he'd only managed to pull on a clean pair today. Other than that he hadn't bothered to get dressed. He fished the phone out of his pocket and handed it to her. He doesn't need to look at the display to see who she's calling.

She winces slightly when the person on the other end picks up. "Sherlock? It's not Dean, it's me. It's Molly."

There's silence from her after that and while Dean can't hear the other end, he can imagine that it matches.

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you," she finally says. "But just know that I'm back."

A sad smile comes over her face, and she says into the phone, "No, I'm not okay." Molly looks at Dean. "But I will be."

"If you must. Sherlock, I should really- what? Wait, no. Can't I just-" she closes her eyes, bites down on her bottom lip. "Hello, John."

Dean shifts next to her, putting a hand on her bare knee. Molly puts hers over it, her small fingers fitting over his. He can see tears welling in her eyes.

"Believe me, I missed you much more." Tears are sliding down her face now; one falls off the point of her chin, plopping on the faded black of the tee-shirt that she's wearing, bleeding it to and inky dark.

"I'm not sorry for what I did. I'm not- Jesus, John, no. It's not his fault." She took her hand away from his and used the hem of her tee-shirt to mop the wetness from her face. "Listen, I've got to go. Give Mrs. Hudson my love. Well, I don't know how you'll explain to her. Bye, John. Talk soon."

Molly hands the phone back to him. "They're coming. To America, I mean. John and Sherlock are."

Dean just barely suppresses a groan, but he does. They're her friends. "When?"

"Soon as they can book a flight."

"So many Eddie Murphy references, so little time."

He can feel her smiling when she lays her head against his shoulder.

"That Sherlock guy hates me."

"Yes, he does." Her voice is slowly loosing the frightened tone. "But John hates you more."

"Fantastic."

…

In the end, they not only had to stop Eve but the demon Crowley, who somehow became King of Hell and freaking Castiel as well. Guess now they knew why he wasn't picking up. They took Eve down, forced Crowley into the cage with Lucifer and Michael who needed a new plaything now that they didn't have Sam's soul and stopped Cas from absorbing all of the souls in Purgatory and becoming God. And they did with a crotchety old salvager, a guy with a G.E.D, a forensic pathologist, a Stanford drop out, a consulting detective, an army doctor and an archangel who had developed a soft spot for the pathologist and came to help once he learned what Cas was up to.

It was a long few months.

Still, not a bad team for saving the world. Well, maybe not the _world _but from stopping shit from getting seriously effed up.

Molly and Dean retired from hunting; they bought a house in Sioux Falls not far from Singer Salvage with the money that Molly's mother had left her when she died, only a few years after her father had.

Sam continued the Winchester family business, but instead of going solo he had two partners from across the pond. After Sherlock Holmes had learned of the supernatural world he was no longer satisfied out-witting _common _every day bad guys, and John Watson went along for the ride. Adrenaline was his thing and his new job was nothing short of exciting.

Bobby continued to run Singer Salvage as he'd done for years, and was in a _somewhat _healthyrelationship with the Sheriff of Sioux Falls, Jody Mills. She still arrested him on occasion.

The archangel Gabriel, along with a reformed Castiel, returned to heaven after the civil war was over and Raphael was defeated. They've attempted to _actually _restore order and peace, only now with a lot more practical jokes.

…**.**

As far as summers went in South Dakota, Dean didn't think this one was too bad. It was hot, but not too dry, and there was a pleasant breeze playing outside of the house that he'd shared with his wife Molly for the past nine years. It was only a little after noon, lunch time, and there was a small civil war breaking out in his kitchen.

When their first daughter, Emily, had been born, Dean had been paranoid about keeping his family safe from all of the supernatural enemies he'd made during his years as a hunter. However, thanks to Gabriel, they were able to live safely in their small community without fear. That tricky fucker had evaded heaven for no one knew how long, and had promised Molly that her children would be safe from harm.

Figures it'd be Dean's luck that he'd marry a chick with an archangel as a best friend.

But the civil war; it was deceiving. Everything seemed calm. Nothing was broken, the counters were (mostly) free of debris and there was none of the flotsam and jetsam one usually related to war littering the place; no blood on the blue painted walls, no bone or brain matter spattering the cabinets.

Flowers sat in an old soda bottle in the middle of the table, where two girls sat; one primly, a clean plate in front of her, the other slumped, arms crossed over her middle, glaring at the carrots on her plate.

And therein lies the great battle of Dean Winchester's day; getting his four year old daughter, Emma, to eat her goddamn carrot sticks.

Emily, now seven, was every inch her mother; do-gooder, with a level of mischievousness lurking at the edges.

Emma, however, was her father through and through. Stubborn and surprisingly sarcastic for a four year old. She'd rather watch her dad work on his old car than play dolls with her sister, who didn't want to play with such a baby _anyway. _

Dean and Molly's son, Ethan, was only six months old and wasn't showing signs either way. Though he did prefer an Eric Clapton lullaby over Jewel.

Dean doesn't know how Molly did this. After they started having children, she stayed at home with them while Dean worked at an auto shop in Sioux Falls proper. A few months before she got pregnant with Ethan, though, Molly told him that she wanted to go back to work. She missed the quiet of the morgue she said, and so they switched. Dean stayed home with the kids and Molly took over the forensic pathologist position at Sioux Falls General Hospital.

Now, though. Now he knew what she'd been talking about when she said that she missed _quiet_.

With Ethan resting on a small blanket on his shoulder, Dean stands by the table.

"Emma, eat your carrots."

"No."

Emily asks, "Dad, can I go outside?"

"Go head." Emma starts to get up to, and he says, "Nope. Get your little butt back in that seat until you eat those carrots."

"But I don't want to! Uncle Sherlock says that carrots are for rabbits."

Dean closes his eyes and counts to ten. That Fucker.

"Emma. Eat the carrot sticks, or you can't go outside and play with your sister."

"I'm calling Uncle Sherlock and asking him to come and _visit _again!"

_Damn it._

"One carrot stick?"

The stare down that ensues while the carrot is crunched and swallowed is almost unnerving.

"Now can I go outside?"

"Go ahead."

His own features, only small and feminine surrounded by long brown hair, happily grin at him. "Thank you!"

Ethan lifts his head off of Dean's shoulder, and turns his head toward his father. "You need to hurry up and grow, guy. We're outnumbered."

The baby burps, spraying un-swallowed mushed peas in Dean's face and laughs his tiny baby giggle.

"C'mon," Dean says, after wiping his face off with paper towels. He grabs a baby bottle off the counter. "Let's go watch your sisters."

**End**

**Author's Note:** Thanks so much to you guys who have read this story from the beginning, or even came in a little late. Much love.

One more review, for good times sake? (and didn't I promise you a happy ending?)


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